Land Use Indicators in the Context of Land Use Efficiency

In recent decades, the land use changes induced by various economic activities in agricultural ecosystems have affected many aspects of human life. This is the reason why land use change is considered as one of the agriculture-related environmental impacts in a sustainability assessment of food and bio-based products. At the same time, the methodology applied for the quantification of land use change effects is still under intensive research, stimulating scientific discussions. The overall objective of this paper is to fill the gap in knowledge of responsible and sustainable land use management. Specifically, the research provides a comprehensive set of land use change indicators in the context of land use change and land use efficiency. The indicators can be measured based on publicly available databases with the applicability to agricultural sustainability assessment of land use change on a local, regional and global scale. The high share of artificial land and dominant agricultural use of land with low land use intensity were noted in Belgium, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Slovenia, Cyprus, Croatia, Finland, Germany, and United Kingdom. However, land use efficiency was also low. In turn, heterogeneous land cover (but less artificial areas than in other EU countries) and heterogeneous land uses with diverse land use intensity were noted in Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, and Sweden. The challenge in future research could be aggregation of different indicators in assessing the similarity of land use between countries.

Automated summary

The land use changes caused by economic activities in agricultural ecosystems have significant impacts on human life. Land use change is considered an important environmental aspect in assessing the sustainability of food and bio-based products. However, research on quantifying the effects of land use change is still ongoing, leading to scientific discussions. This paper aims to address the knowledge gap on responsible and sustainable land use management by providing comprehensive land use change indicators applicable to local, regional, and global agricultural sustainability assessments. The findings highlight the high proportion of artificial land and low land use intensity in certain European countries, and the heterogeneity of land cover and land use intensity in others.